Monthly Archives: November 2011

A Word on Grammar: on the corner or in the corner?

A word on Grammar, , ,

That’s a question I’m often asked by my students and here’s the answer I offer them.

What kind of “corner” are you referring to? Is it the corner of a room or the corner of a street?

♥ If you are giving directions  to a shop, then you should say:

This shop is on the corner of High Street

♥ If you are saying that a person is sitting in a chair in a room, then:

Mary is sitting in a chair in the corner of the sitting-room.

Summarising: you use in, when the corner is inside and on, when the corner is outside.

Note: you can also say at the corner to refer to the corner of a street.

I’ll wait at the corner/ I’ll wait on the corner.

The “first” Thanksgiving

American Cultural aspects, customs

A legendary Thanksgiving celebration was held in 1621. The terrible winter of the previous year had been difficult for the Pilgrims.Many of the Pilgrims had died because of the illness and lack of shelter. The Thanksgiving celebration  was held after the Pilgrims  had their first harvest-after they had gathered their crops.

The writings of the Pilgrims  tell us that about 140 people attended the three-day celebration. Ninety of the people were Wampanoag men. About 50 people were Pilgrims . Only four the Pilgrims  at the party were women. The feast was held  outside because the Pilgrims  did not have a building large enough to hold so many people.

The Pilgrims were thankful for the harvest and for the help of the Wampanoag in teaching them to grow crops in America. Without their help, the Pilgrims would have had litte to eat. The menu for the first Thanksgiving included venison, or deer meat, and fowl, which included ducks, geese and turkeys. Sea bass, cod fish cormeal, fruits and vegetables were also served.

Games were played and singing and dancing were also part of the celebration. Praises were given to God for the harvest and for the Pilgrims  that survived the harsh winter.

Thanksgiving in America is now celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. Families prepare a meal similar to the meal prepared by the Pilgrims  and Wampanoag 400 years ago. It is a time for counting the blessings we have receied during the year and for spending time with family and friends.

Mybrainshark

Create your own stuff, Slides, Speaking

Today I want to show you a tool which has a lot of potential in the classroom. It’s called Mybrainshark and it offer lots of possibilities .

Mybrainshark allows you to:

♥Add voice to a PowerPoint. Upload your Power point presentation and add audio to every slide by using a microphone. You can also add background music.

♥Upload a document and add audio. It might be very useful when you want to explain a grammar point or when you want your students to improve pronunciation.

♥Upload a video and add your voice to it or/and add background music.

♥Make your own photo album and comment on it or add music.

♥Make your own podcast.

Besides, it’s free -you only need to register – and it’s easily shared or embedded in a website or blog.

I’m planning to immediately use it with two levels.
♥Elementary levels. Record students while doing a role-play. I’m going to use the Photo album option and take pictures of them.
♥Intermediate levels. Students narrate their own speeches illustrating them with photos. They can either use the Power Point option or the Photo album option.

Give it a go and if you have any ideas about how to use it the classroom, don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

Teachers being taught!

Games, General, Students' Corner, ,

I’m still at the high school. I can’t complain. It has been my own decision and nobody said it was going to be an easy path to walk . Teaching highly motivated adults is very easy, there is no argument here! But teens, oh my goodness!
Lack of motivation in some rural areas has been an ongoing problem for some time and this big crisis is not helping much.

On the other hand, I find it really challenging to find new ways to motivate my unmotivated and/or under motivated students. That’s why when I suggested they try and be teachers for one day designing some strategies to revise the grammar for the Present Tense and two of my students showed a tiny bit of enthusiasm I readily encouraged them. Sadly, one of them didn’t come up to my expectations, so it’s not worth mentioning but one of my students ,Eva, did really well. She revised the present tense, she wrote some exercises for her classmates to practise and she even made us play TIC TAC TOE, which we had been using for Frequency Adverbs and Interrogative Pronouns. This is a picture of Eva below. Well done, Eva ! Teaching is in your genes!